Indies and Kindle Unlimited

[pwalker8]

One of the indies that I tend to read is Glynn Stewart. I just got an email from him (mass mailing I'm sure) announcing two things, first that he is going on Kindle Unlimited and second announcing a Patreon account for him for $5 a novel. Of course, you are automatically charged $5 each time he comes out with a new novel.

Interesting twist. Basically, if you don't want to sign up for Kindle Unlimited, you join the Patreon account and get his books for $5 a piece. I guess this is to get around the contract limitations of being a Kindle Unlimited author. Having no desire to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, that's the direction I went. I wonder how long before other authors try this loophole and if Amazon does anything about it.

[Quoth]

Kindle Unlimited is bad. Fuels the Amazon monopoly.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One of the indies that I tend to read is Glynn Stewart. I just got an email from him (mass mailing I'm sure) announcing two things, first that he is going on Kindle Unlimited and second announcing a Patreon account for him for $5 a novel. Of course, you are automatically charged $5 each time he comes out with a new novel.

Interesting twist. Basically, if you don't want to sign up for Kindle Unlimited, you join the Patreon account and get his books for $5 a piece. I guess this is to get around the contract limitations of being a Kindle Unlimited author. Having no desire to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, that's the direction I went. I wonder how long before other authors try this loophole and if Amazon does anything about it.

You don't have to join KU to buy an author's books. They can still be bought from Amazon at full price. That Patreon thing may be useful for those who don't buy from Amazon at all, though.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You don't have to join KU to buy an author's books. They can still be bought from Amazon at full price. That Patreon thing may be useful for those who don't buy from Amazon at all, though.

Perhaps. He also says that people who sign up on Patreon can get it a few days early. There appears to be some sort of downside to Amazon unlimited given that quite a few authors dropped out of it. I'm no sure what the pros and cons are though. I simply thought that the Patreon angle was interesting and different. Stewart is Canadian, so that might make a difference.

[DrNefario]

Interesting. Maybe it is a sneaky way around the kindle exclusivity you have to sign up for to use KU.

[Deskisamess]

I read a lot of books from KU, most I wouldn't spend $1 on, let alone $5. Many of them are around 220 pages, and I can read one in 3-4 hours. I can easily read 8-14 books per month of these lite fiction reads, making KU a good buy for me. With the savings I just got it's an even better buy.

I agree it must be a way to do an end run around Amazon's terms for authors in the KU program. Wonder how long it will be until Amazon closes the hole.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Fuels the Amazon monopoly.

The imaginary one?

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The imaginary one?

No, the real one. Amazon has a 100% monopoly on KU.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One of the indies that I tend to read is Glynn Stewart. I just got an email from him (mass mailing I'm sure) announcing two things, first that he is going on Kindle Unlimited and second announcing a Patreon account for him for $5 a novel. Of course, you are automatically charged $5 each time he comes out with a new novel.

Interesting twist. Basically, if you don't want to sign up for Kindle Unlimited, you join the Patreon account and get his books for $5 a piece. I guess this is to get around the contract limitations of being a Kindle Unlimited author. Having no desire to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, that's the direction I went. I wonder how long before other authors try this loophole and if Amazon does anything about it.

Here is a link to his blog:

https://www.glynnstewart.com/glynn-stewart-patreon/

The email, I imagine, was just a copy of the blog emailed?
Nice to see that he will put all his books into KU.

This means that if you’re a Kindle Unlimited member, by the end of the year all of Glynn’s books will be included in your membership.

And that not all books are in KU yet might just indicate that he has to pull them out from other ebook stores.

Thank you for the reading recommendation. At first glance it looks interesting. Is there a specific reading order? Or simply pick a series at random and go to the next after?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Here is a link to his blog:

https://www.glynnstewart.com/glynn-stewart-patreon/

The email, I imagine, was just a copy of the blog emailed?
Nice to see that he will put all his books into KU.

And that not all books are in KU yet might just indicate that he has to pull them out from other ebook stores.

Thank you for the reading recommendation. At first glance it looks interesting. Is there a specific reading order? Or simply pick a series at random and go to the next after?

Some of the series are interconnected, others are not. I actually started with the Red Falcon series, which is a side series to the Starship's Mage Series.
Interstellar Mage occurs immediately after Starship's Mage and has many of the same characters. Hand of Mars also occurs right after Starship's Mage and follows one of the lead characters from Starship Mage.

Red Falcon is my favorite of his, followed by Starship Mage. Both are a mix of technology and magic. Duchy of Terra and Castle Federation are both standard space epic type series. A couple of his series are more fantasy. others are more super hero.

[Kindleing]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Is there a specific reading order? Or simply pick a series at random and go to the next after?

I was poking around the author's website and found a link to reading order suggestions. It seems there are two options for the Starship’s Mage and Red Falcon series described at
https://www.glynnstewart.com/starshi...reading-order/

I'll have to add these to the list.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The imaginary one?

LOL, Yup!

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No, the real one. Amazon has a 100% monopoly on KU.

But no one is forced to join KU if they don't want to, so it's just BS.

If you are a very heavy reader, you can have endless amounts to read on KU for just a few bucks a month. If I didn't have an endless TBR pile I would join KU.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

LOL, Yup!



But no one is forced to join KU if they don't want to, so it's just BS.

If you are a very heavy reader, you can have endless amounts to read on KU for just a few bucks a month. If I didn't have an endless TBR pile I would join KU.

Which doesn’t change that Amazon has a monopoly over KU.

Of course amazon also has a monopoly on Kindle ereaders. Because you know they make them or in the case of KU run it.

[barryem]

When I bought my Paperwhite last year it came with 6 months free Kindle Unlimited. I'd never really been interested in KU but it was free so I decided to play with it. In the first month I read two really excellent books by authors I'd never heard of that, without KU, would have been way too pricey to take a chance on. All of a sudden I was interested.

My free period expired several months ago and I still have it and I've found myself reading more and more books from KU, mostly books I probably wouldn't have read otherwise. Probably about half of the books I read are now from KU.

I have enough books in my library and on my hard drive that, at age 79, I'll probably never run out of good books to read, so I don't really need KU, but I sure do like it.

Barry

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Which doesn’t change that Amazon has a monopoly over KU.

Of course amazon also has a monopoly on Kindle ereaders. Because you know they make them or in the case of KU run it.

Except those "monopolies" are not true monopolies, but rather exclusive products. So the term "monopoly" has to be applied with sarcasm in both cases. For Kindle ereaders Amazon isn't even the exclusive seller.